Journal

Posted by: Nick Vitale

21 March 2012

Siri Made Its Way Into The A-Class Mercedes-Benz

Skylab has a Mac office culture so, by extension, it makes sense that many of the staff use iPhones, both for personal and professional use. When we came across Mashable’s news story a few days ago we wanted to put our opinions forward. Frankly, we’re surprised it’s taken any car manufacturer this long to find a way to connect users and drivers in a functional, streamlined and intelligent way.

According to Mercedes, the car will integrate a user’s iPhone directly into the Mercedes’ electronics system via a program called Drive Kit Plus. This will work in conjunction with Mercedes-Benz’s Digital DriveStyle App, allowing drivers to use voice commands to control iPhone functions like listening to music, changing radio channel and even updating statuses on social networks.

While cars have had complex electrical systems for some time, it seems to us that the integration of a mobile phone into a car is still quite crude. This is surprising if you think about how sophisticated mobile phones are now. If you perform an internet search, you will find dozens of ways to make your computer and mobile phone work together. You can even use an iPhone to control a presentation on a laptop or desktop computer; and that’s pretty easy to do.

We would like to see greater integration of all electronics into what could be considered the mundane details of life. Why doesn’t my GPS talk to my mobile phone? Perhaps my alarm clock should turn on my coffee pot? There are plenty of hacks on the net that will deliver this type of integration, but it seems that no major manufacturer is willing to make the commitment to work across both platforms and industries to make an ideally integrated “life” experience.

Of course, Skylab has a fantastic development team that can deliver integration like this (shameless plug). Keep an eye on our blog for future updates or say hello on Twitter @studioskylab.

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